


Entangled

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Robin Hood (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guy doesn't like the fact that Robin can trust him any more than Robin likes that he trusts Guy, but there's a connection between them that cannot be severed, and neither of them can walk away from it even if they want to. (Spoilers for all of series three, up to and including the finale!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entangled

_I._

For the first time in months, the nightmares that wake Robin in the middle of the night are not his own. 

He wakes, bathed in sweat. Marian's name is hanging in the air in a broken echo, and it takes Robin a moment to realise that it didn't come from his throat. Beside him Kate is curled up with her back turned to him, sleeping deeply, undisturbed even when Robin rolls away and gets up.

Gisborne is lying on the floor, thrashing about, a strangled moan escaping his lips while his face contorts as if in pain. 

_Good_ , a vicious little voice in the back of Robin's head says. _He deserves this, and worse._ But eventually, Gisborne's nightmares will wake the others, and they need their sleep. Robin tells himself that, if he wakes Gisborne now, it won't have anything to do with sympathy, it won't be for Gisborne's sake, it won't be an act of kindness that Gisborne doesn't deserve.

Robin gives him a little shake, then another, hissing out his name when he won't wake. Finally, the body beneath him comes to life, violently surging up. Gisborne reaches for Robin's throat while his other hand fists the front of his shirt. He looks like a haunted man on the wrong side of sanity. Madness is clouding his eyes, and for a moment, Robin regrets not having a weapon on him to defend himself. Gisborne's hand on his throat is unforgivingly tight. But it takes only seconds until the wild expression shrinks away from Gisborne's face and his grip eases. 

"Hood." The name comes out like a curse, or perhaps a sigh; Robin isn't sure which, can't tell from the inflection or the pained look Gisborne bestows upon him. 

"It's all right. It was just a dream," Robin finds himself saying, offering comfort despite himself and hating himself for it.

Gisborne laughs hoarsely, all bitterness and no mirth. "No, it wasn't," he says, not meeting Robin's eyes. "It was a memory."

He doesn't need to say which memory. When he turns and looks at Robin, it's Robin's turn to evade his gaze. He doesn't want to have this conversation. Not now, or ever. Still, he says the words that have been getting him through many nights when he thought he wouldn't make it until dawn: "You can't change the past, Gisborne."

He doesn't know if Gisborne finds any sleep after Robin has turned away and gone back to his own beddings, but there are no more nightmares that night. 

They return, of course, if not the following night then the night after. But return they always do, if not to Gisborne then to Robin, and he finds himself waking gasping for breath with Gisborne's hand cool and steady on his neck more than once. He almost shrugs it off, the first time, almost tells Gisborne that he has no right to act as if he understood. But the thing is: Gisborne does understand, in a way that Robin's friends never will, in a way that Kate never could. And if he lets Gisborne hold him until he's remembered how to breathe, if he allows himself that comfort, if he spends more time at night curled up against Gisborne than he spends at Kate's side, well, who'll ever know?

 

_II._

"Gisborne's loyal. I'd stake my life on it," Robin tells Kate, because it's his duty to reassure her, because a leader who lets on that he doubts his people is no leader at all. 

It's only later – after he walked away from Kate, after she asked him for declarations he wasn't prepared to make – that he realises that it was the truth: he does trust Guy with his life.

And how mad is that? That he should place that kind of trust in a man who killed the person who meant most to him in his life, a man who'd been dead-set on killing him only weeks ago. Has that much really changed, all because they share a half-brother?

Except, of course, this has nothing to do with Archer. Maybe it had, once, at the beginning, giving them a shove in the right direction, but it's moved past that before they even arrived in York. No, this is not about Archer. It's about Guy and him, and about what they once shared and what ( _who_ ) they lost.

There's a rustle of leaves behind him, the crack of dried branches on the forest ground as someone approaches his hiding spot. He knows that it's Guy without having to check, the footfall too heavy for Kate and too hesitant for Much or John or Tuck or Allan.

"Robin."

Just his name, coming from Guy's lips with an ease now that Robin didn't expect. He thought they'd forever be 'Hood' and 'Gisborne' to each other. 

Guy stops in front of him, not saying any more. He seems oddly uncomfortable, and the silence is awkward more than anything, as if Guy comes bearing bad news or something else he doesn't want to say.

"What is it?" Robin asks, finally, sounding more irritable than he intended. 

The silence stretches heavily. Guy won't even meet his eyes now, and _damn_ , Robin thinks, _this is going to be_ bad. But then Guy finally speaks, and it's not to announce further complications, but to say something Robin never expected to hear from Guy, not in this life, and not directed at him. 

"Thank you."

The words hang weighted in the air between them, and Robin knows there's something he should says – something like, 'You're welcome', or 'Never mind', or 'I just wanted to calm the others down'. But he can't make his lips form the words, and instead it's once more Guy who ends the silence. 

"For earlier. Defending me, saying I'm one of you," he adds, as if Robin didn't know what exactly he was being thanked for.

And then, before he can think about what he's doing, Robin is up and right in front of Gisborne, mere inches between them, his eyes fixed on the other man's because he has to know that he's not making a colossal error here. 

"Tell me I'm right to trust you," he demands.

Guy looks away. "We both want the same thing. We're on the same side," he answers.

 _Not good enough_ , Robin thinks, and reaches out to take hold of Guy's chin and force him to look at him. "Tell me _I can trust you_ ," he repeats intently.

Guy draws a sharp breath and fixes Robin with dark, blazing eyes that seem to see right through him. "You can trust me." 

He leans down and presses his lips to Robin's, almost angrily, as if he's trying to make a point. And maybe he is, because Robin gets it: Guy doesn't like the fact that Robin can trust him any more than Robin likes that he trusts Guy, but there's a connection between them that cannot be severed, and neither of them can walk away from it even if they want to.

Robin returns the kiss with just as much anger and desperation. It's nothing like kissing Kate or Isabella or even Marian, and he's glad for that.

 

_III._

It's the calm before the storm, and they can all feel it coming, feel it in the air that's heavy with anticipation. The Sheriff's army is just outside their door, like a hungry wolf getting ready to attack its prey. 

Guy watches as Robin slinks off into the deeper parts of the castle where the shadows are dark enough to hide from the world for a little while. He hesitates before he follows, because Robin has left for a reason, and Guy doesn't want to intrude. Except... that's a lie: he does want to intrude. He's just not sure of his welcome.

He finds Robin on his own, far from the others, in a large room in the south tower, and it takes him a moment too long before he realises the significance of the place. For a split-second, he wonders if it's a coincidence that Robin came here, before he remembers that Robin probably knew where Marian was at any time, and that he certainly knows that she was staying here, in this very room, during her enforced residence in the castle. 

The room seems uninhibited now; it appears that Isabella hasn't claimed it for herself or her people yet. Guy can still see Marian in every hidden shadow, her presence everywhere in the room, like a thin layer of dust clinging to every object and every surface. It's almost enough to make him turn around and flee. Almost, but not quite.

Robin is leaning against the wall by the window, looking out. Guy knows what he's seeing out there, would know it even if it wasn't for the expression of weariness and defeat on Robin's face. 

Guy expects Robin to state that they can never defeat that army out there (because they can't), or to tell him to leave him alone (because Guy should have), but he doesn't expect the question Robin asks. 

"Why are you staying?"

And that... that's the big question, the one Guy hoped no one would ever ask him. He has his answer ready, though – the nonchalant, magnanimous answer of a righteous man: "Like you said; this is bigger than me."

Robin snorts and turns to Guy with a mocking expression. "You never cared for the fate of the country before. Forgive me if I say I find it a little hard to believe that you suddenly developed a strong sense of wrong and right."

The words should sting, but there's no bitterness in Robin's voice and Guy cannot deny that he has a point. He couldn't care less about what happens to this country or its people. But he does care about Robin. 

It's a strange kind of _déjà-vu_. He remembers staying in Nottingham when King John's men were going to kill every man, woman and child within the city walls, staying because he wouldn't leave Marian behind even when he didn't expect to survive. He didn't stay because it was the right thing to do; he didn't _care_ about the right thing to do. He stayed for Marian then, just as he's staying for Robin now.

He's not going to say that, of course. He'd sooner bite off his tongue than admit it. There's something like too much honesty, even now.

"There are things worth fighting for," he says, and when some of the tension eases from Robin's face, when the lines on his forehead are smoothing and the firm set of his jaw relaxes, Guy knows that Robin understood what he was saying.

"There are," Robin echoes quietly, pushing Guy against the wall and kissing him.

His thoughts dart to Marian, and there's fresh guilt boiling white-hot in his stomach because surely it's wrong to do this here, in her rooms. He tries to imagine her face as she watches them, tries to imagine her looking at them – no, at _him_ – with disgust and revulsion, but he fails, unable to imagine anything hateful on her features, no matter how much he thinks he deserves it.

Robin kisses him as if their life depended on it, as if Vaizey's army would fall just from the clash of their mouths. His stubble bites Guy's skin, and his hands clench too tightly on Guy's shoulders while the cold stones dig into his back.

It's escapism and oblivion and denial, and Guy relaxes into it and lets Robin have it all. He might want it, but Robin... Robin needs it, needs to get away from the fighting, from being their fearless, mythical leader, needs to get away to be free from the men's hopes and Tuck's demands and John's anger and Much's worship and Kate's love, just for a while. 

And if Guy can give this to him, then he will. 

 

_IV._

The last thing Guy sees in this life is Robin: Robin's face above him, looking at him with a broken expression Guy doesn't dare to hope is for him. 

_I should die alone_ , he thinks. _For all I've done, I should die alone and in pain._

But the pain is bearable, and Robin is here with him, holding him, and there's so many things Guy wants to say and so little time. Already he feels his vision darkening on the edges, narrowing down until his world constricts to just the man in front of him, this dead man walking, and he clings desperately to Robin as the darkness swallows him. 

"No one should die alone," a hauntingly familiar voice beside him says, and there she is, crouching on the stones next to him, an ethereal vision, a beautiful angel of death.

It takes his breath away and chokes him to see her, but he can't take his eyes off her. 

"Marian, I'm –" There are not enough words for this, but at least he has to try.

"Shhh." She hushes him with two fingers against his lips. "I know. It's all right."

 _No, it's not_ , he thinks, and if he gets the chance, he will spend the rest of eternity apologizing to her. 

He doesn't dare to reach for her for fear that she'll dissolve under his fingertips when he touches her, but it's Marian who holds out her hand to him as she stands and brushes herself off. "Shall we, then?"

He hesitantly takes the offered hand, as if he's expecting her to retract it any second, unable to believe that she really came for him. The hand is warm and solid, fingers firmly closing around his.

 

_Coda._

Robin thinks he probably should be more surprised than he is when spots Guy standing a short distance away between the trees, watching them. Marian, her eyes following the direction of Robin's gaze, stiffens and sighs, the careless laughter at once vanishing, and Robin wonders how he'll ever be able to explain to her how he came to forgive Guy for what he'd done. 

But then she says, "You didn't really think I'd leave him behind, did you?" and Robin realises that it was _Marian_ who brought Guy here, that it's not seeing Guy that upset her but rather the anticipation of Robin's reaction. He feels a sharp stab of jealousy that must be written all over his face, because Marian looks at him disapprovingly.

"Our destinies are entangled, yours and mine and his. They always have been. I thought you'd have realised that by now, Robin."

He swallows his irrational anger. It's ridiculous, he realises. He has long since forgiven this man. He has held him though his nightmares and allowed Guy to help Robin through his. He has lain with him, and kissed him, and shared things with him he only ever shared with Marian before. He has held him in his arms as he died. Of course their destinies are entangled; it would be pointless to deny that now, and petty, and they're beyond this.

Robin sighs. "I wasn't saying anything, was I?"

Beside him, Marian smiles a smile as bright as sunshine and leans over to peck him on the cheek. "Good."

When she strides over to where Guy is standing and take his hand in hers, Robin watches and waits for the familiar surge of jealousy, but to his own surprise there is none. He shakes his head and smiles to himself and goes to join them.

End.


End file.
